The mediating role of self-efficacy and hope in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction: a path analysis study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of self-efficacy and hope in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction. The research method was descriptive-correlation type and the statistical population was all students of Kashan University, 353 of them were selected by cluster random sampling based on Morgan's table. To collect information, four Rosenberg self-esteem questionnaires (SES), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Snyder Hope Scale (AHS) and Diener's Life Satisfaction Scale (SWLS) were used. The data obtained through structural equation modeling (SEM) were analyzed using the path analysis method using the steps suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986), with SPSS26 and AMOS24 software. The findings of the path analysis indicated the significance of the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction, so that the path of self-esteem to self-efficacy with a coefficient of (0.54) and the path of self-efficacy to life satisfaction with a coefficient of (0.22) were significant. And the path of self-esteem to hope (0.48) and the path of hope to life satisfaction (0.47) were found to be significant. Therefore, the results indicate that self-efficacy and hope play a mediating role between self-esteem and life satisfaction.